business

So, how did I launch a Comic Book Publisher?

If you read my last blog post, you’ve basically surmised that someone who reads lots of comics and can’t draw worth anything has decided to enter the business. Yeah, seriously. So, I have the ambition, some business background and tons and TONS of comics in my basement that my wife keeps threatening to get rid of, or worse yet, put into the hands of two toddlers. I’m sure that’s exactly who Stan Lee and Bob Kane got their starts.

To be fair, she has been quite supportive, but as a young family with a limited budget, I decided that if I really wanted to do this, I was going to make some sacrifices to get this thing going. This meant it was time to go into the basement and sell some of my coveted Walking Dead books. I’ve told myself that if I make a go of this thing, I’m going on eBay and buying myself a nice copy of a #1, even if I pay some ridiculously inflated price. Anyway, without any further ado, here are the sacrificial lambs that made Lucha Comics a reality:

Sacrifice #1: The Walking Dead #10 & #11

I picked these up off of eBay awhile ago. I made a bit of money off of them, but not a ton. While profit is nice, I told myself if I can turn some books into cash, it can help me to get things going. Parting with these hurt a bit, but not as bad as the next one…

Sacrifice #2: The Walking Dead #27

I’m not going to lie – this one hurt (Especially since I scored this at a local shop’s back issue bin for cover price less than 2 years ago – this was an absolute STEAL). Yes, besides The Walking Dead 1 and 19, this has got to be the most sought after issue. Before this, the world knew not of how awesome and sadistic the Governor was. Despite the fact that I have more valuable comics in my collection, this was probably one of the hottest books that I had. Letting it go wasn’t easy, but I had a goal to reach, and while I could have saved over a few paycheques to make this happen, I really wanted to see if my comic book collection could spawn a comic book business.

Other Sacrifices:

Other sacrifices included The Walking Dead #20, #42, #61,63, #85-91 and the variant of #75, and some DC New 52 stuff. So, what did this leave me with?

Enough funds to get my friend Emilio (the most talented visualizer I have ever met) to come up with an awesome logo for my brand, and a new website design that will be rolling out here soon. It also covered some web hosting costs, and, in case if I ever learn to draw or can find an intern, a Bamboo tablet. While this doesn’t sound like much, it’s more then enough to get me going. Now I just need to finalize some content deals and get some cool stuff out there…